Avatar

A few days ago, I watched the much talked about movie Avatar. I would give full points for its technical brillance. The whole concept and its execution is really commendable. But I personally felt that the story line was very much hackneyed. A sci-fi movie can have the liberty of portraying an abstract message, something that can convey a larger, more challenging theme. But they chose to go with a concept that was easily likable to the masses, hence did not prefer to choose a subject that would have been more intellectually stimulating.

But the name Avatar, echoes back to India. Avatar is a sanskrit word and in simpler words avatar means to take a different form. The Hindu mythological stories abound in various avatars of the gods. Especially Avatars of trinity gods Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. From what I understand from these stories are that the Gods would take Avatar (forms) of different beings to slay a demon or to bring a drastic change. The way I see it is that to bring about a change, we need to make transformational changes in ourselves, so to speak as though take an Avatar.